Workers packaging briquettes at Sanivation Company in Naivasha on March 14. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION
Not so long ago, the rainy season was a dreaded period for Naomi
Nduta and other residents of the Kiwanja Ndege informal settlement in
Naivasha, more than 70km northwest of Nairobi.
The
waste from the full latrines would flow into the rivers following a
heavy rains, often leading to outbreaks of diarrhoea and cholera.
“My baby used to suffer from frequent stomach aches and diarrhoea,” said Ms Nduta, a mother of three whose house stands a few metres from a large dumpsite littered with waste paper bags.
“My baby used to suffer from frequent stomach aches and diarrhoea,” said Ms Nduta, a mother of three whose house stands a few metres from a large dumpsite littered with waste paper bags.
Then Sanivation, a social enterprise that turns human waste into fuel came on the scene.
Safe briquettes
Sanivation
provides the 200 households in the area — and those in Kakuma refugee
camp in northern Kenya with specially made container toilets dubbed
“blue box.”
With these, the firm collects
human waste, treats it using a solar panel and makes briquettes out of
it. A single toilet costs $2 per month to service. The toilets are
serviced twice a week.
According to Ms Nduta, the blue
box is another name for convenience as she does not have to take her
five-year-old out to the latrine in the middle of the night. What’s
more, her children have been diarrhoea-free since she stopped sharing
the communal latrine.
According to WaterAid, some 5,000 children in Kenya die every year from diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.
“So clean and odourless is the toilet that I have put it in the children’s room,” Ms Nduta told The EastAfrican.
A
short distance away from Ms Nduta lives, is Mary Njoki Kimani, a mother
of two. She cooks in her single room using briquettes made from the
treated human waste. The briquettes are safe for her as they are
smokeless and carbon free.
“My child sleeps in the same room that I cook in,” she says, adding that the briquettes have proven safe for them.
Ban on logging
Sanivation is killing two birds with one stone: Sanitation and sustainable fuel. Lack of proper latrines is a problem in Kenya.
Only
three in 10 Kenyans have access to a decent toilet, according WaterAid
while charcoal, an affordable source of fuel for the low-income earners,
is fast falling out of favour as efforts to save trees intensify, while
liquefied petroleum gas is too expensive for many.
Ms
Kimani explains that she spends less on briquettes compared with
charcoal. A 0.8kg bag of briquettes goes for $0.25 and can cook for two
to three days whereas charcoal of a similar weight costs $0.50 and will
last approximately two days.
Sanivation managing
director Emily Woods says the ban on logging and efforts to protect
forests have resulted in more orders for the company as charcoal and
firewood have become more expensive and harder to find.
“Schools,
prisons, flower firms and hotels around Naivasha have been calling...
the demand is higher than we can meet,” said Ms Woods, who came up with
the “blue box” idea.
To increase production,
Sanivation’s government relations officer Dickson Ochieng is approaching
different county governments to supplement their waste management using
technology.
Their pilot project is with
Naivasha Water Company where they have built their processing plant next
to the treatment plant, which they hope will help process 100 tonnes of
waste into 100 tonnes of charcoal per month.
The
organisation is also working with the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees to provide toilets at Kakuma refugee camp as well as fuel.
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